“Really! Did they? How very jolly,” was Erskine’s comment.
His voice sounded cool and unperturbed, and Claire did not venture to look at his face. She thought with a pang, that perhaps after all she had been mistaken. Perhaps Mrs Willoughby had been the real donor ... perhaps he had never thought... She hurried on terrified lest her thoughts might be suspected.
“Mrs Fanshawe has been so kind, allowing me to send boxes of fruit and flowers to a friend in hospital. One of our mistresses, who is being treated for rheumatism.”
“Poor creature!” said the Captain with careless sympathy. “Dull work being in hospital in this weather. How have you been getting on with my mother, Miss Gifford? I’m awfully glad to find you down here, though I should have enjoyed showing you round myself. I’m a bit jealous of the mater there! She’s a delightful companion, isn’t she? So keen and alert. I don’t know any woman of her age who is so young in spirit. It’s a great gift, but—” he paused, drew another cigarette from his case, and stared at it reflectively, “it has its drawbacks!”
“Yes. I can understand that. It must be hard to feel young, to be young in heart and mind, and to be handicapped by a body that persists in growing old. I’ve often thought how trying it must be.”
“I suppose so. Yes. I’m afraid I wasn’t thinking about it in that light. I was not discussing the position from my mother’s point of view, but from—her son’s! It would be easier sometimes to deal with a placid old lady who was content with her knitting, and cherished an old-fashioned belief in the superiority of man! Well! let us say the equality. But the mater won’t even grant that. By virtue of her superior years she is under the impression that she can still manage my affairs better than I can myself, which, of course, is a profound delusion!”
Looking at the firmly cut profile it seemed ridiculous to think of any one managing this man if it were not his will to be managed. Mother and son were alike in possessing an obstinate self-will. A conflict between them would be no light thing. Woman-like, Claire’s sympathies leant to the woman’s side.
“It must be very difficult for a mother to realise that her son is really past her control. And when she does, it must be a painful feeling. It isn’t painful for the son; it’s only annoying. The mother fares worst!”
Captain Fanshawe laughed, and looked down at the girl’s face with admiring eyes.
“What a faculty you have of seeing the other side! Do you always take the part of the person who isn’t here? If so, all the better for me this last week, when the mater has been spinning stories of my obstinacy, and pig-headedness, and general contradictiveness. I thought I had better hurry home at once, before you learnt to put me down as a hopeless bad lot!”